The use of bathroom facilities is not something that people have traditionally associated with notions of pleasantness. Event organizers, national parks, and all manner of businesses have long been concerned with the experience of using bathroom facilities, both with respect to sanitation as well as to the aesthetics of using such facilities. Luxury amenities include such features as hands-free pedal and automatic flushing toilets, hot and cold running water, hand-washing stations, appealing laminate walls, fashionable counter tops, decorative ambient lighting, skylights, music, and porcelain sinks and toilet fixtures.
Many of today's restroom facilities—particularly but not only portable facilities—utilize a catch basin or internal holding tank for the accumulation, storage, and later removal of waste. This is in contrast to facilities integrated into a sewer system to remove waste from the visual area of the toilet. The accumulation of waste matter in these catch basins and storage tanks creates an unpleasant visual experience for the users of these facilities, and results in an overall negative mental image that can impact the image of the event or business providing the facility. Currently existing products and solutions fail to fully address the negative visual experience that results from observing the accumulation of waste within the catch basin or toilet basin. While addressing the overall sensory experience of a bathroom visit is of value, the unpleasant visuals that occur upon approaching the toilet itself can negate this initial positive impression.
The classic method for removing this negative visual experience has been the use of a hinged toilet seat lid. While a lid that covers the opening to the catch basin or storage container can help reduce the initial negative visual experience, it is dependent on other users of the facility lowering the lid after use. A further disadvantage is that prior to using the toilet, the lid must be raised, making the negative visual experience nearly unavoidable.
Similarly, the use of decorative or luxury materials to construct the toilet itself does not detract from the negative visuals relating to the accumulation of waste. One disadvantage to decorative lids is that they draw attention to the lid, which then leads to a the user of the facility being immediately directed to a view of the waste product in the catch basin or storage container upon lifting the lid.
A further disadvantage is that a lid will, at best, reduce the extent of the negative mental impression. The lid itself typically neither enhances the experience of using the facility, nor serves as a differentiator for purposes of marketing the quality of a facility or the experience associated with the person(s) or organization(s) providing, or associated with, the facility.
Another prior art solution has been to include colored water in the storage tank below the toilet seat. This solution only work when the amount of solution sufficiently deeply covers the waste in the tank. This is quite often not the case, particularly as the facility is used to a substantial degree. Further, this solution does not work for waste that floats, which waste often does.
Yet another prior art solution has been to provide a flapper valve at the lower end of the toilet in order to block the waste from view. Flapper valves, however, result in a variety of problems including that they quickly become dirty, can block waste flow to the storage tank, and cause upward splashing of waste toward or even above the toilet seat lid and to the side of lower waste passage covered by the flapper valve.
Water flush systems have also been employed to flush waste away from view. Water flush systems are inherently more complex and costly. Frequently, resources are not available to support such systems. They are therefore frequently not utilized despite their utility.